This week was a bit of a bust as far as Magic went. I had something of an emergency on Tuesday and was out of commission for a couple of days after. Nevertheless, I was able to play my first match for the Pauper to the People League Event, which went better than expected. Shout out to Will (a.k.a. Kennon online), who was most gracious and easy-going. I find the first match of any competitive-type event to be a little worrying, as it will often set the tone for the rest of the tournament. A bad matchup, or a rude opponent, can easily sour the whole thing, but this round proved to be both fun and challenging.

Alas, I ended up losing the match. My opponent was playing a Green Post deck, splashing some Red for removal and land destruction. Game 1, I was able to slow him down with an early Snuff Out on an Overgrown Battlement and follow up with discard effects. Without much of a hand left, my flying beaters and rats were able to take him down, even though he was able to put a total of 7 Posts in play. In game 2, we went at this for some time. I was able to get rid of his early Aurochs Herd with Castigate and a Doom Blade, but didn’t find an answer to the following ones. A Stone Rain on my Orzhov Basilica destroyed my second black source and I was finally beaten down with a hand full of useless Sign in Blood. Game 3 was a massacre. I had a good starting hand with a Snuff Out and two Doom Blade, but Kennon played several land destruction’s spells, and by the end of it I had only a single Plains in play to face his green monsters.

Nevertheless, the deck proved to be fun and reliable. Even though at this point, I’m not sure that the OhBlink deck proposed last week could prove to be a contender in the online Pauper metagame, I do believe that Momentary Blink is strong enough a card, and provide good enough an effect, for a Blink-type deck to make it in the big league. While I will keep the original list for the rest of the PttP tournament, I’ll keep tinkering with the deck and see what other options are available.

The first thing I want to change is to remove Death Denied from the sideboard and replace it with Footbottom Feast. Actually, that’s a modification I already did and which is included as part of the list I’m using for the league event. Both cards are solid against Control decks, but generally speaking, Footbottom Feast will be more cost-efficient than Death Denied.

I’m also thinking about using a different spell suite, to provide more early game disruption and a tad more removal. Castigate is a nice card, but usually sub-par in this deck compared to Ravenous Rats. Cry of Contrition and Raven’s Crime seems like superior options, as they would provide the deck with a one-drop and a reusable disruption effect. Doing so could allow me to remove Shrieking Grotesque, which doesn’t interacts all that well with Momentary Blink, and add something with a direct impact on the board, like Kor Hookmaster.

Apostle’s Blessing could also provide another solid alternative by giving the deck a way to protect it’s creatures from removal or by giving them evasion, though the sideboard might be a better place for the card.

One way or another, my intent is to update the deck over the weekend and put it through the grinder next week. The goal is basically to use the deck as a deckbuilding exercise, taking it through various models and iterations to see if A) the deck, in whatever final form, is viable in the current modern Pauper metagame, and B) to see if something like this could be done with other old Pauper decks.

Modern, or Magic for the less budget-conscious player

Speaking of updating old decks, I also happen to be fairly invested in Modern. Actually, I would go so far as to say that Modern is my primary format at this point. While I will not be able to participate in the current PTQ season due to time constraint, I have every intention to use the current Modern-crave to put on my brewing hat and try to develop a better understanding of the format as a whole. Eternal formats are notoriously hard to get into, as the cardpool is deeper and the broad metagame is generally more dense and intricate. Spending the season as an observer more than a player does not seem like a waste, especially since the format will likely be extremely volatile in the upcoming weeks.

My goal is to build, tweak and test several decks, old ones and new ones, and see how they perform in the new and evolving metagame. Modern being brand new, and going through it’s first real test-run, the next few weeks seem essential to anyone interested in learning and understanding the intricacies and the synergies of the format.

The first list I’m going to test with is an aggro brew inspired by the Congregation Zoo lists from past Extended, sprinkled with a touch of Maverick. It also supports asymmetric synergy, which is a concept I want to experiment with and which I will likely talk about in greater detail eventually. Here is the deck:

[Modern] Congregation Zoo

Creatures – 25

• 4x Bloodbraid Elf
• 1x Eternal Witness
• 3x Grim Lavamancer
• 3x Knight of the Reliquary
• 1x Magus of the Moon
• 1x Meddling Mage
• 4x Noble Hierarch
• 2x Qasali Pridemage
• 2x Scryb Ranger
• 4x Tarmogoyf

Spells – 11

• 2x Bant Charm
• 3x Congregation at Dawn
• 1x Lightning Bolt
• 1x Lightning Helix
• 4x Path to Exile

Lands – 24

• 4x Arid Mesa
• 1x Breeding Pool
• 3x Forest
• 1x Gavony Township
• 1x Hallowed Fountain
• 1x Island
• 4x Misty Rainforest
• 2x Plains
• 2x Rootbound Crag
• 1x Scalding Tarn
• 1x Steam Vents
• 1x Stomping Ground
• 1x Sunpetal Grove
• 1x Temple Garden

Sideboard – 15

• 1x Chalice of the Void
• 1x Engineered Explosives
• 1x Gaddock Teeg
• 1x Kataki, War’s Wage
• 3x Kitchen Finks
• 3x Lightning Helix
• 1x Meddling Mage
• 1x Pithing Needle
• 2x Rhox War Monk
• 1x Trinket Mage

I will not comment on the list at this point, but will instead come back next week with my thoughts on it.

That’s it for now. See you ‘round kids and coots!